


singing with all my skin and bone

by likewinning



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics)
Genre: Comment Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-13
Updated: 2015-03-13
Packaged: 2018-03-17 15:11:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3534101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likewinning/pseuds/likewinning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jason dies and Bruce goes dark. No one can bring him back except Jason and even then it might be too late.</p>
            </blockquote>





	singing with all my skin and bone

"They say he lost his mind," Talia tells him. There's laughter in her voice when she says it, and Jason feels rage, real rage, for the first time in weeks. She shows him the newspaper headlines, the ones about the Joker's death, the ones about the manhunt for the Batman.

No one can find him, or stop him. Jason suspects, maybe, no one's tried very hard in years. Sure there are bodies piling up, sure Batman is no longer careful to draw that line between pain and _death_ \- but the city is safer, cleaner than it's been in years.

Oh, Bruce.

*

He leaves Talia in the middle of the night. He knows she could find him if she wanted, but then, she knows there's only one place he'll go – back home, back to _him._

"He won't be what you knew," Talia warned him days before, pushing the hair back from his face, tracing the stubble on his jaw.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Jason said. Maybe she never did.

*

It's winter in Gotham, January, Christmas lights still hanging outside apartment windows, ice and slush on the ground and no one, really, on the streets.

Jason knows where to find him.

It's been years, and Jason was _dead_ , but he knows –

He could have come to the house. Could have rung the bell, given Alfred a heart attack by showing up on the doorstep, two years older and just as crazy, just as stupid, just as _sure_ he can do the right thing. But he needs to see Bruce like this, needs to see if there _is_ still a Bruce beneath the cape and cowl.

Even before he died, sometimes he used to think – 

Sometimes he'd see Bruce disappear _completely_ , and it's the only thing that could ever really terrify him.

He waits on the rooftop. He doesn't know how long Bruce is really there, but he feels him for minutes before Bruce approaches, before he's standing five feet behind Jason. He can't hear Bruce breathing, can't hear _anything_ but the noise of the streets below, but he knows –

"If you're wondering," Jason says. "It really is me. I know it's crazy, and unbelievable, and you can do every test in the book if you want but it's _me_ , man."

He's wearing a leather jacket, a beat-up Clash t-shirt, a pair of jeans with holes in them and combat boots he's already outgrowing. When Bruce – Batman – reaches for him, Jason's not sure what he's expecting, but it's not a hand on his throat, tugging him back. It's not Batman - _Bruce_ \- breathing him in, sniffing at him like a goddamn vampire.

"Jesus, Bruce," Jason says. His heart's going seven hundred miles a minute and it's cold on this rooftop but Jason can't even feel it with how close Bruce is right now, with how fucking _terrified_ -

" _Say_ something," Jason says.

Bruce squeezes his throat and then lets him go. Jason turns around to _look_ at him. He can see the stubble on Bruce's cheeks, the changes Bruce has made in the uniform. He knows, without having to feel, that there are deadlier things in that belt now, that while Batman doesn't kill on _principle_ , he –

Has.

When Bruce speaks, it sounds like he hasn't spoken in years, like he hasn't said anything since Jason's been _gone_. "How," Bruce says. "How can you be…"

Jason shrugs. "Beats the hell outta me," he says. "Just lucky, I guess."

Bruce grunts, and Jason hears a million things in it, a million other questions he won't _ask_. God, Jason _missed_ -

"How long?"

This is the tricky part. Talia sent him here to join Bruce, to bring the city to its knees in ways Bruce still hasn't.

But Talia's fucking crazy, and she doesn't _get_ it, couldn't get it, no matter how much she thinks she loves Bruce.

She's got no fucking _clue._

"Two years," Jason says. "Only been lucid for about half that, though."

He can't see Bruce's eyes through the cowl, can't see enough, but he can feel the change in him anyway, the hurt there. He's here to save Bruce, here to bring him back, but it's all he can do not to say _thank you_.

The Joker got what he deserved, and Bruce – Bruce _did_ that for him.

He reaches out for Bruce, not because he should but because he _needs_ to. Bruce pushes back the cowl and his eyes are old, so much older than they used to be, and Jason can see tiny flecks of grey starting at Bruce's temples, can see how bloodshot his eyes are. He scrapes his knuckles against the stubble on Bruce's cheeks, runs his fingers through Bruce's hair, leans in and just breathes sweat and skin and everything he's missed.

He's grown in the last two years, isn't the five foot something punk who practically had to climb Bruce like a tree to reach him, but he still has to tilt himself up to get to Bruce. He wraps his arms around Bruce's neck and Bruce tilts his head down, says, "I failed you, Jason."

"No," Jason says. Bruce's hands circle his waist, and Jason looks him right in the eye, the way he was always able to, even when things were _shit_. "Maybe you failed the rest of them, but not _me_."

It's not _thank you_ , but it's not a condemnation, either. It's him, and Bruce, and everything he needs. The rest of Gotham can wait.


End file.
